Ellen Donaldson

Rain Rain go away! We have gotten a ton of rain this year. As soon as the ground dries up some we are ready to roll. Crop plans are being finalized, planters have been repaired and cleaned, anyhdrous wagons are prepped, and sprayers are good to go! If we can just have a few days of warm weather and sunshine the 2019 season can begin.

On the tobacco side we are starting seeds in our greenhouse, and prepping for our migrant workers to arrive. This year will be our largest tobacco crop yet.

The cattle side is ready for some dry weather and green grass too! The resident Holstien Penelpe is enjoying being queen of the farm. The cattle side has seen quite a few changes this year. We are using a new software, Performance Beef. It has so far been a great help in managing treatments, cost, and feed. We fed 15,000 head of cattle last year and our goal for 2019 is 20,000 head. So if you look at the Jolly Farm as you pass buy you will probably see some heavy equipment working on the Jolly Expansion.

Fertilizer can be applied to fields in many different ways. Before planting we apply anhydrous to our fields. If we didnt get to a field before it was planted we side dress it. We side dress with nitrogen and our applicators have to carefully drive between the growing corn rows.

Guess what! Its raining again… We did get about 5,000 acres planted before we had to stop. We are still working on fertilizing and spraying the fields. On the tobacco side plants are growing in the greenhouse and the fields are being fertilized. With the dry sunny weather coming in this weekend we will be hitting the fields asap!

Y'all!!! THE SUN IS OUT!!!! It feels like spring is finally here and we are so glad! This is the first week it has been dry enough to get the planters out in the field. We are also still running anhydrous applicators. This means we will be moving lots of equipment down the road. When you see a SSF truck with flashing lights or orange flags there will be equipment behind it. Here is a little video of our third day of planting.

Its the first day of spring! And it is snowing…….. Even though things are moving slowly because of all of the rain and snow, all of our corn seed in, 5,000 acres are fertilized, 4,000 preped with Anhydrous, and 2,500 are tilled. Now we just need some sunshine and warm temperatures.

It is almost time to start planting your garden but it is defiantly time to start seeding tobacco! Every year at SSF, Chris Croft takes a couple of guys across the county line to Cook Bros Farms and they each other seed tobacco. Here you can see the fancy seeding machine being filled with potting soil. This machine is a Horticulturist dream come true! It seeds 288 tiny tobacco seeds at a time. Today they will do 1,200 trays! Then they are double checked to make sure only one seed is in each compartment and taken to greenhouses where they are floated out on beds of water. In just a couple of days little green sprouts will spring to life!

It has finally dried up enough for us to get into the fields. We have our anhydrous crew out preping the fields for planting. They will run until the rain returns this weekend. Its still pretty dreary out, but atleast it not raining!

The sun is shining!!!! It might be raining tomorrw but today is perfect! Planter repairs are just about completed and we are ready to start anhydrous application and planting. Spring is all about planning here at SSF. Lots of meetings are happening, lots of list are being made and lots of things are being repaired. Once anhydrous starts it will be petal to the metal straight thru to harvest.

We had a great turn out this year for Safety Day! Over 150 farmers and firefighers came out to learn about safety on the farm. We had speakers on grain bin safety, grain quality, grain rescue, and an awesome lunch! Pork Chops were provided by Pioineer. Oh man, were they good! Sides and dessert were provided by the Harper House. We also had two sprayer certification classes after lunch! If you missed out this year and want to come next year it is always the first Wednesday after the Farm Machinery Show.

Gatton is on floor cleaning duty before everyone arrives!

You can't go wrong with chocolate chip cookies and banana pudding!

Baked beans and the best hashbrown cassareole ever! I didn't get a picutre of the pork chops but they were cooked to perfection! Thanks Harper House and Pioneer!

The Trigg Co Volunteer Fire/Rescue Team

Jessica and Josh Brashears enjoying a break before the Dicamba Certification.